Article July 13, 1946 Issue

Our Father's Business

W. CYPRIAN BRIDGE

When the parents of Jesus on their homeward journey from Jerusalem, as recorded in the second chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, missed the lad from among the crowd of their fellow travelers, they at once turned back to the holy city to seek him. It must have been a great surprise to them when they eventually discovered him in the temple, seated among the leading theologians of the day, engaged in discussions with them apparently on equal terms. Seeing him thus, his mother tenderly rather than harshly reproved him for his truancy, saying, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us?" To this she received the significant reply, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

Already, at what to sense was an early age, Jesus was to a great extent imbued with the Christ-spirit. Such are the power and attraction of Truth that his hearers, instead of resenting his intrusion and the seeming forwardness of his behavior, apparently accepted these as a matter of course, almost as if they had expected him to come, and conversed with him as with an equal. The part played by the Master plainly indicated that the acquisition and impartation of spiritual understanding are not dependent upon age. A familiar proverb declares, "Man is never too old to learn," but it might well be amplified to read, "Mankind is never too old or too young to learn or to teach," at any rate where the things of the Spirit are concerned. Jesus' unique experience in the temple on this occasion, when he was twelve years old, was the first public step in a life fully devoted to the contemplation and proof of spiritual realities—a lifetime during which he progressively proved the power of the Christ, and which culminated in his final demonstration of the unreality of all materiality—in the ascension.

What was the main objective of his life? Was it not to teach all mankind his Father's business? He assured his apostles in unambiguous language that they who believed on him should do the works that he did, and even greater works. Of what did those works consist? Of delivering mankind from all the ills of the flesh, namely, sin, sickness, and death, through teaching them to know God aright and their duty to Him. Especially he sought to redeem men from sin, knowing that deliverance from sin included deliverance from all other ills. He knew that the sinless man of God's creation needs no physician, for this man partakes of his Maker's own glorified being, in which there can be no evil. Our Master proclaimed that the way of salvation is open to everyone who is ready and willing to emulate his example, and he made it quite clear that his Father's business is everybody's business, and that there should be no laxity in performing it. He who practices love to God and man will be ever about his Father's business, demonstrating the true selfhood of man in His image and likeness.

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